Op/Ed

Let's Hope Someone Loves Frank Artiles Enough to
Get Him Some Help

Posted April 20, 2017 09:55 am | Op-Ed

By
Florence Snyder

On a busy day of hearings in a busy week of the
legislative session, a south Florida woman wanted a
picture of herself and a friend and the rain pouring
outside the Knott Building. She scanned the immediate
vicinity for a friendly face, and held her iPhone out to
Jacksonville’s Audrey Gibson.

Plainly the tourist had no idea that Gibson was a
member of an elite, exclusive, and powerful club.

The tourist was utterly unaware that the elegant lady
she approached is one of a tiny handful of Floridians
upon whom the sun rises and sets in #TheProcess. Most
definitely, the tourist had no clue that hundreds of
people are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to catch
a moment of the time of this woman and her 39 colleagues
in the Florida Senate.

Gibson smiled, took the iPhone, and spent a stunning
amount of time considering camera angles and composing
multiple shots.

This
is the gracious public servant that Frank Artiles refers
to as a “fucking
bitch.” To her face. At the members-only
venue where people pay through the nose for a quiet
place to eat, drink and do business, and pay extra for
private lockers for their personalized cigars.

Artiles has a history of verbal violence toward women, African-Americans,
and Muslims.
His drunken diatribe Monday at the Governor’s Club is
not the first time he has embarrassed himself in a bar.
We now know that “pussy” is his go-to insult for a white
male lawyer who outranks him in #TheProcess pecking
order.

It has been suggested on the Sayfie Twitter Ticker,
where some Floridians still get some information, that
Artiles. a former Marine, may be suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder. Let’s put that one
to rest. PTSD doesn’t cause bigotry, but alcohol makes
bigots more likely to reveal their pre-existing
prejudices.

Artiles didn’t much look like a Marine as he stood on
the Senate floor to read an insincere, meaningless
apology written for him by some hastily-assembled
Committee to Save Artiles Career. The senator from a
Diverse Miami Neighborhood shifted on his feet, looking
like a rattled schoolboy as he rattled the pages of his
prepared text.

When people can’t exercise the control and judgment
we expect of a third grader, there is often a medical
explanation. Let’s hope someone loves Artiles enough to
help him find out.